


around the place

by Rest



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-28
Updated: 2015-12-28
Packaged: 2018-05-09 22:38:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5558210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rest/pseuds/Rest
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I took the weekend to wander around town,” Shitty tells Lardo over the phone. “It’s not big, but it’s something. Neat little buildings. Even more fall colors than we had at Samwell.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	around the place

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Schuyler](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Schuyler/gifts).



> Pinch-hit for Swawesome Santa 2015.

“I took the weekend to wander around town,” Shitty tells Lardo over the phone. “It’s not big, but it’s something. Neat little buildings. Even more fall colors than we had at Samwell.”

“What’d you do?” Lardo asks.

“Tried local food with a couple of classmates. Split off and walked through what passes for downtown.”

“Do you feel like you know the campus already?”

“Enough,” Shitty says. “I’ve been here before, obviously.”

“Obviously,” Lardo echoes, dry. She keeps him in check.

“It’s only three years, anyway,” Shitty says. “Not like I need to get all that well acquainted with the area.”

“Doesn’t that matter for, like, networking? Don’t big fancy lawyers network?”

“I guess,” Shitty says. There aren’t that many divides between him and Lardo. He’s never sure how to approach the things that set them definitively apart from one another.  _ I already know everyone I need to, because I’m from the right type of family _ seems like something she doesn’t need to hear.

\--

Lardo yanks at the lock of hair that’s been falling into her eyes. She watches it flatten out in the mirror Shitty left in her new room when he moved. Maybe she should dye it.

That feels like a cliché.

Maybe she should cut some more of it off. Use it in a sculpture. She laughs a little at the thought.

“What?” Shitty asks.

“Thinking about hair sculpture,” she says.

“While it’s on your head? Or would you cut it off first?”

“Now that’s an idea,” she muses. “Might have to be longer.”

“You could use mine!” Shitty shouts into her ear. “You could call it, like, ‘Flow: An Exploration of Movement.’”

“Nice,” she says, grinning. “But that sounds like interpretive dance.”

“Who says I couldn’t do interpretive dance?”

“Absolutely nobody, Shits.”

\--

_ Realized a prob _ , Shitty texts Lardo the next day as he’s waiting for Civil Procedure to begin. He’s sitting in the second row of the lecture hall. He only just realized today that there’s actual marble trim along the ceiling of this room.

She sends back the question mark emoji.

_ Sculpting hair is already a thing. Hairdressers. _

_ Fuck _ , she responds.  _ What am I gonna do now? _

_ You might still be able to sell it. _

_ Remember when I was thinking about making a micropark for my installment midterm? _

_ I still say that would have worked. _

_ It would have. But I have my pride. _

_ \-- _

“Fucking torts,” Shitty whines to Lardo. 

“Fucking critical studies,” Lardo whines to Shitty.

She hears him take a long swallow of whichever shitty (heh) craft beer he’s drinking. She takes a hit of her joint in solidarity. She’s in the Haus. Her room. Their room. She’s been wondering if she could get away with painting it, and if she wants to, this late in the game. She’s only living here until June.

“Still looking for a dealer there?” she asks.

“A dealer who sells anything other than stimulants, yeah.”

“Harvard doesn’t know how to have fun,” she tells him.

“That or law students don’t know how to have fun,” he admits. “It’s cool, though.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, like--classes are so cool. Even if torts can go fuck itself. It’s good. I like it a lot.”

“I’m glad,” Lardo says. She’d wondered if he’d be able to like this as much as he’d liked his gender stuff. Which, now that she thinks about it, is basically critical studies, so of course he likes law school.

“How’s the Haus?” Shitty asks.

\--

He’s not asking about the Haus, really. It can be hard to get Lardo to talk about herself.

“‘Sawesome,” she says. “Shits, it's ‘sawesome. Seriously.”

“Those darn kids giving you trouble?”

“Nah,” she says. “Well, which ones? Because Rans and Holster have been keeping their powerpoint thing to a minimum, and it’s making me nervous. But nah, they’re great.”

“Sweethearts,” he mumbles. “They’re sweethearts.” He worries at the label of the City Steam he’s trying out. It’s… well. It tastes like beer. Beer never tastes like all that much to him.

“Nursey suggested I help run get-to-know-the-team games,” she says after a pause.

“Hm,” Shitty says. “I guess I helped to do a lot of that, before.”

“Rans and Holster were gonna take it over,” she says. “They’ve basically been apprenticing with you.”

“They’re great at that stuff,” Shitty says. “Even if they do get a little… high-concept.”

“I don’t want to do it,” she says. “I’d be fine, but I don’t want to. I feel like if I do that I’ll become the Haus mom.”

“Only room for one of those,” Shitty says.

“Bitty,” she says. “And, well. Also Jack, sometimes. Maybe more so.”

“Bitty’s more like the Haus… supportive younger brother?”

“I guess none of us are the mom.”

“Kind of the point, right.”

“Still, it’s cute,” she admits. “I get to hold my dibs over them already.”

“Oh, shit,” Shitty whispers. “Who’s gonna be the next  _ manager _ , Lards?”

“Man,” she says, drawing the word out. “I’m working on it, okay? Don’t psych me out. I got things in the works.”

“I know,” Shitty says. “You always do.”

\--

Bitty hands Lardo what looks like a large croissant as soon as she enters the Haus kitchen.

“Broccoli cheese,” he whispers. His expression is serious enough that she doesn’t question it, just... bites.

He’s not wrong: broccoli cheese.

Holy shit,  _ broccoli cheese _ .

She snaps a picture of its insides to Shitty.  _ Broccoli cheese courtesy Bittle _ , she captions it.

_ DANG _ he snaps back, overlaid on a close-up of his flared nostrils.

“Branching out?” she asks, mouth only stuffed half-full.

“Just some ideas I thought I’d try out,” he says, sly, like he doesn’t know it’s excellent. “Chowder’s has avocado and tomato. It’s not--well, it ain’t pretty,” he says. “But he sure liked it.”

“Did you make one for everyone?” she asks, incredulous.

“Just Justin, to start,” he says. “Made the pastry and he said he thought it’d be a great grilled cheese. Then Chowder came by as he was making that and said it smelled good, and--and somehow in his mind that meant he needed one with avocado and tomato?”

“Goalies?” Lardo guesses. “Or California.”

Bitty nods. “Then Dex said his mom used to make crab with somethin’ like this, and he looked so lonesome when he said it--”

“Bits, we don’t even have crab--”

“Well, no, but I make him one with cheese in it, kind of like Justin’s, and then I threw in some Old Bay.”

“Like that gross spice?”

“It makes him happy!” Bitty says, waving a hand. “And then I gave in and made one for everyone I thought might come around today. It was fun.”

“Is mine broccoli and cheddar because of the soup?” The soup--the one soup the dining hall never runs out of. Bits is the only other person Lardo’s met who loves it.

Bitty nods.

“What would you have made Shitty?” she asks.

“Beer and cheddar and shallots,” he says, prompt, like he doesn’t have to think about it.

_ Yours would have been beer cheddar shalot _ , she snaps to Shitty, overlaid on another picture of her bun-pastry-thing.

“Hey, these gotta name?” she asks.

Bits shrugs. “They’re new.”

She nods with satisfaction.

\--

Shitty snaps Lardo a screenshot of Harvard’s grade portal. This week, he’s trying out library studying.

_ L221 Midterm I: C+ _

_ L281 Midterm I: B- _

She sends him a shot of her with a thumbs-up and a grin.

“I’m not dealing with this well,” he admits when she calls that night and asks. “Like, looking at that, I can understand how the drug dealers in this town can subsist on just uppers sales.”

“Ah,” she says. He can picture the dismissive, friendly wrist-flick she always does to accompany that sound. “It's only your first semester. They told you it would take time.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t  _ believe them _ ,” he says. “And I can’t whine to my dad, and I don’t want to whine to my mom, and I definitely don’t want to whine to anyone here.”

“Yeah, God forbid you show weakness,” she teases.

He sighs.

“You worked hard, huh?”

“So hard,” he says.

“It’s gonna be better next time. You’re still figuring out what they’re asking you to do, man.”

Shitty groans.

“It’s rough. I won’t tell anyone if you need to listen to some Coldplay, okay?”

“Wha--”

“When you try your best,” she starts singing, directly into his ear, horribly warbling, high, off-key.

“Ow, fuck! Fuck, holy shit, Lards, stop,” he laughs. “Fuck, it’s good to have you around.”

She says, “It’s good to have you around, too, Shits.”

**Author's Note:**

> Schuyler's prompt: "I'd love some post-grad Shitty/Lardo. I wanna know what their life is like next year."
> 
> I wanted to get this in on the deadline, so I went with a slice-of-life, dialogue-heavy piece. CP is a dialogue-heavy comic, I guess, but it’s still fun to try to tease out the bits of interaction we get from Lardo and Shitty into a full-blown, ongoing conversation.
> 
> Come find me at restfic.tumblr.com!


End file.
